


The Voltron Files: Tales of the Briar Pact

by damnrightitskakko



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other, Slow Build, wizard buddy-cop au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7645375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnrightitskakko/pseuds/damnrightitskakko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a mystic force known as the Briar Pact held the nations of the Fae Regions at peace; no kingdom stood above another, and dark and light were balanced.<br/>But things are not what they were. Now, five heroes of the Mortal Realm must draw upon mysterious powers, and save the Fae Regions from the encroaching forces of the Goblin Kingdom.<br/>At least, they will, once they get their shit together.</p><p>Hilarity might ensue.</p><p>~~~~<br/>Currently, what will start out as a collection of drabbles inspired by the Voltron: Legendary Defender show. But with more buddy-cop magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Case File: Fairies Have Stalkers Too"

**Author's Note:**

> 'eeeeey everyone, I'm trying my hand at writing fic! I'm hoping to start this out small at first and then, who knows? Anyways, I hope you guys have fun with this little Wizard-Buddy Cop adventure I've sent the boys on!

 

"I knew she was trouble the day she walked through that door. Tall, imposing, and with the brightest, glowing eyes a man ever did see, I knew it right there in my gut that this fine woman would bring the very gates of Hell to my doorstep. But with legs like that? I just might forgive her--”

A small bone hit Hunk right behind his head.

“Hunk, ew. Stop monologuing about your latest rock crush and help me dig through this trash.”

Hunk sighed. He should have known his poetic soul would be unappreciated in his current company.

The two of them were standing in a pile of trash--well, what constituted “trash” to an earth fairy. They’d found some ripped-up cardboard, a bunch of chopsticks, several pieces of bread that looked like they’d had mold cut out of them, and a few knick-knaks that were _definitely_ worth something back home.

And, of course, disconcertingly, small bones.

Hunk didn’t want to think about where Shay got those. He didn’t _think_ she looked like the human-child-eating type, even if she _was_ technically related to trolls.

She’d come to their headquarters--which was really just an abandoned castle that was a leftover from an era where Allura’s people used to control the region, eons ago--with a note written in blood that she’d found tacked to the front of her home with a weak enchantment on it. She’d no idea what it said, and when she handed it over to Corran, the note had sparked, and fallen to the stone castle floor with a blue flame that sputtered and died. According to Corran, it was, “A two-bit love confession from a coward with too little spine to step forward and too much time on his hands to be decent about it”, and then spat on the remaining embers of the note “for purifying elf reasons”.

Either way, any kind of guy who sent his crush bloody notes that caught fire was a guy who meant business in the creepiest way, and Hunk was determined to help Shay get rid of him for good.

“C’mon, Pidge, I was trying to set my mindframe on the task at hand! You know, visualising your end goal, sort of thing.” He picked bent down and picked up a piece of...something, from the assembled garbage in front of him. “I’ll have you know that it’s very helpful. I got through a lot of Sgt. Hammons’ classes with just imagining myself passing his classes, it really works!”

“What I don’t understand”, Pidge said, and snapped one glove tighter on her hand, “Is why you need to visualize our client’s _legs_ to help me sift through her trash. She’s being stalked, not working as a Goblin spy. What do her legs have anything to do with this?”

Hunk blushed.

“Well, that is”, he started. “That is, you know. Don’t all the famous cop dramas start out that way? You know. With a beautiful woman coming into their lives and all things just go, well, haywire. In the most amazing way, of course”, Hunk covered, and got down on his knees to help Pidge out. “Just sayin’, you know. Since we’re fairy cops now, might as well start narrating our lives--”

A snicker came from Hunk’s pocket.

Pidge and Hunk both stopped. “Um. Hunk? Did you forget to deactivate your communication pendant?”

Hunk turned redder.

“Oh my god, _no_ ”, and he pulled a small pendant out from his pocket. It was copper, with a small pentagram emblem embossed in the center. And it was glowing.

The laughter got louder.

“Hunk! I can’t believe you-- _with legs like that, I might forgiver her_? Ooohhh my god, pffhahahah!!!”

“Lance!!!” Hunk wanted to die. Of all the people, for Lance to overhear him--and then for _Lance_ to make fun of him for it--the world wasn’t fair. “You--you are not being very supportive right now, Lance, and that is _not_ cool”.

“Oh, _come on_ , Hunk, you were being hilarious! Of all the detective stereotypes to chose from, you pick the femme fatale? What happened to donuts?”

“I’m trying not to think about donuts because I know I can’t have them, and you’re not--”

“GUYS.” Pidge snatched Hunk’s pendant away from him. “Focus. Have you guys found anything over on your end?”

“Well, we might have”, Lance’s voice emanated clearly from the pendant, as if he were sitting right there in the garbage with them. “So I was looking into see if there was any kind of fairy-version of surveillance cameras, right? Since that would make ID’ing this guy a _whole_ lot easier. Turns out, there is--kind of.”

Hunk scooted closer, and winced as something slimy touched his leg. Garbage was gross everywhere, even in fairyland.

“So stop me if you’ve heard this one--the Billy Goats Gruff.”

Pidge’s eyes widened in interest. “You’re saying they exist?--wait, of course they exist. This is the Fae Regions, where fairytales are real and Christmas comes early. Duh,” and smacked her forehead.

“Yeah, turns out they act as kind of like a protection gang in the area. They have like, a turf war with trolls, and since Shay is _technically_ related to that branch of earth fairy--sorry, Hunk--the Billy Goats Gruff send a few of their goat buddies ‘round Shay’s cave front every now and then to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up. We found a group of Gruffs and we’re trying to get them to tell us something ab--”

Lance suddenly stopped, and Hunk looked at the pendant to make sure they hadn’t accidentally deactivated it. It was still glowing, so he guessed that meant it was still on.

“Lance?” Pidge said quietly. “You still there?”

There was more silence, and then a very aggravated (and exaggerated) sigh. “I am going to kill him. KEITH!!!!”

Pidge and Hunk jumped at the sudden volume, and Pidge clamped her hand over the pendant in a panic.

“Quiznak--how do you turn this thing off again??”

  
“Um,” Hunk supplied helpfully.

“KEITH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU CAN’T BEAT A GOAT IN A KICKING CONTEST!!!”

“Here, let me--” Hunk grabbed the pendant back from Pidge, and instantly the pendant’s glow ceased. He sighed, and stuffed it back in his pocket. “Huh. I guess it must only react to the person it’s assigned to.”

“Peachy”, Pidge said, and wiped off some Earth Fairy garbage sludge off her pants. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I swipe someone’s pendant for blackmail purposes.”

“Uh, okay”, Hunk said, and looked around at the rest of the pile. “I don’t think we’re going to find any other signs of the stalker here. Why are we even looking through Shay’s trash in the first place?”

“Because if _we’re_ looking through her trash and we’re her friends, then her stalker must have looked through her trash because he’s obsessed. Try to think more like a stalker, Hunk.”

“Um, rather not, thank you very much”, he said, and picked up Yet Another Disconcerting Bone. “And how’s that supposed to help us anyways?”

“Well.” Pidge drew out her Athame--a short knife with Elvin runes gifted to her by Allura, as each of the five Paladins were--and started humming softly. The athame began to glow, slightly, and she held it out in front of her. “I came up with a spell that detects signatures of other fae creatures. Since we’ve sorted through her trash enough that it’s more spread out, it’ll be easier to read and see if we can find something that’s been touched by a creature other than Shay’s family and us. Let’s see, “ Pidge stood up, and held her athame at arm’s length and started walking around the separated garbage.

“Let’s see...there’s lots of green signatures, which I guess is for earth--oh, that green’s pretty bright. Did you touch that?”

Hunk nodded.

“Huh. Interesting”, and she continued. Over the knick-knacks, over the chopsticks, over the bread--and finally, over the bones.

They glowed purple.

“Okay, what the quiznak”, Pidge started, but was interrupted by the ground shaking. A low rumbling noise emanated from the entrance of Shay’s house.

“You know, it occurs to me”, Hunk said, as he stood up slowly with no sudden movements, “That we never asked Shay if she’d told her family that she had a stalker. Or that, specifically, she was having it investigated.”

“Very pertinent inquiries you have there, my dear Hunk”, Pidge noted, and stowed her athame away in its sheath. “I daresay we should follow up on those, perhaps somewhere else, where big angry earth fairies aren’t just about to explode out of the entrance of their home and attack wayward trespassers.”

“You know, I heartily concur with that notion.” Hunk began to gingerly step out of the garbage, but then another loud rumble followed. “Okay, running now.”

“Right behind you!” Pidge shouted, and the two of them bolted as fast as their legs could carry them.

~~

“So…”

Shiro clasped his hands together. The wooden one, carved with gnarled runes, creaked.

The other four paladins tried to look dignified in the face of their leader’s confusion. Keith failed, because of the Very Apparent goat-inflicted wound on his face. It was swollen, and kind of ridiculous.

“If I gather correctly, we have...two leads into Shay’s stalker, but we don’t know what they mean because you two spooked Shay’s family--”

Shay, in the room, gasped.

“--and you two accidentally reignited a turf war between the trolls and...goats?”

“Bery Fpmean Goatths”, Keith mumbled out of the good side of his mouth.

Shiro bit his lip, and looked over at Allura, who had given up looking dignified and simply had her head in her hands.

“Well...it’s a start in the right direction, I guess. Could have turned out worse", Shiro said. "So...good work, team?"

Hunk sighed. He could really go for a donut right about now.

 

  



	2. Where Can a Fairy Cop Get Some Fairy Coffee Around Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang decide to go over their progress on the case. Well, Corran does, anyways. Everyone else is too sleep-deprived to care. Turns out there might be more to this case than the Paladins previously thought--and it just might get a whole lot worse.

“Alright, everyone!” Corran said excitedly, and slapped his hand against the old tapestry that hung over the castle stone wall. “It’s time for the Morning Case Board Review! I hope everyone got a good night’s rest, because we’ve got quite the day of justice-dealing and wrong-doer catching to catch up on!”

There was a collective groan from the assembled Paladins gathered around the round table. It was a suspiciously fancy round table, and if Pidge had the energy to think about it, she might believe it could be the round table. But at this hour? She was too tired to care, and too cranky to bother. She wasn’t the only one; Hunk poked at the grog that was supposed to be breakfast, and Lance had his head on the table muttering vague, coffee-deprived sounds. Keith just looked like hell.

(The goat wound on his face didn’t help. Allura had managed to dig up a healing salve she found somewhere in the castle, so the swelling had gone down and his jaw was no longer In The Wrong Place; however, magic can only do so much to diminish the mark of an angry goat, especially if the goat in question who so delivers their hoofy wrath is also magical. The magical properties of goat hooves deserved further research, and Pidge already had a drafty castle room in mind dedicated to allocating such information.)

The only other person in the room who looked awake was Shiro. He was poised, leaning forward in his seat with his head resting on his propped-up arms, eyes intent on the hodge-podge of parchment and bright baubles tacked to the tapestry on the wall.

Pidge noted that Allura and Shay, who were also in the room, looked tired. So it wasn’t some fairy magic that imbued Corran with his ungodly early-morning cheer. She mentally filed that information away under her ever-growing list of Things to Know About Fairies. (It would join the goat hoof knowledge in her yet undisclosed filing room.)

“Corran, do we have to do this every morning?” Pidge yawned. “We already know everything we’ve collected on the case thus far. We went over it with Shiro yesterday!”

Corran twirled his mustache. His shapely, perfectly trimmed mustache. Pidge was convinced that there was magic involved.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, Pidge! Y’see, here--”

Pidge yawned again. Louder, and angrier than the first.

Corran was undaunted.

“--As each of you pursues your different angles of the investigation, sometimes information goes dull in your head! It becomes stale, like moldy cheese, and you don’t think like you should when coming across new leads. That’s why, each morning, we go over the assembled case notes with all the new information and make it fresh! So your precious little Paladin minds won’t get bored of the minutia.”

“Aw, come on, this just makes us get bored faster”, Lance whined. “How are we supposed to work our cases like this when the sun isn’t even working yet?”

Corran huffed. “Well, see, that’s--”

Pidge felt another petty yawn coming on.

“I think it’s a good idea”, Shiro interruped.

Pidge clamped her mouth and restrained her yawn. It was a really good yawn, too, damnit.

Shiro leaned back in his chair, a small smile on his face. He folded his arms down to rest on the table, and looked at ease. Shiro lightly tapped the table with the fingers on his wooden arm--Shiro’s nasty leftovers from his imprisonment by the Goblins.

“We had boards like this while I was studying at the military academy when we were going over case-studies of famous military operations. I found it helpful when analyzing information on a ‘big picture’ scale. It’s easy to get too absorbed in the small details and forget what you’re actually looking at”, Shiro explained, and looked at each of the Paladins in turn. Keith returned his look with goat-smothered reverence, Hunk looked abashed, and Lance looked begrudgingly worshipful.

When Shiro looked back at her, Pidge struggled to look something other than what she felt--petulant that Shiro’s charismatic big-brother vibe was making her less surly, yet again. So she managed a half-smile, and then looked down. She watched as Shiro idly traced some invisible symbol on the hardwood table with his wooden hand as he continued to talk. Pidge almost looked back up, but then she noticed that he kept drawing the same symbol, over and over again. Was it just idle motion? Or was it a letter? Did Shiro even realize he was doing it? Whatever the symbol, she didn’t recognize it.

Another bit of research for the undisclosed filing room.

“--So with that in mind, I’d like to go over the tasks I’m assigning all of you today. Pidge, you mentioned that you wanted to do research on the aura you read from the bones?”

Pidge snapped to attention.

“Yes! That is--I came up with the spell only recently, and haven’t created a database for what all the different colors mean. Also, there was an anomaly with the aura readout that I didn’t anticipate with Hunk’s interference--”

“--Look, we were both looking through the garbage, it’s not my fault--”

“--That bears investigation”, Pidge finished. “Since this aura readout will not only help us with this case, but with further investigations, I want to start collecting as much as I can, as soon as I can.”

“Very good”, Shiro said, and looked back at the assembled Paladins. “Hunk, you’ll go with Pidge again today and help with that. Maybe you’ll figure out that anomaly, while you’re at it.”

“What’s that diorama of overlapping dreamcatchers with pebbles tied onto it supposed to be?” Hunk asked. He had his head on the table now, his chin submerged in the breakfast grog, and the bowl clattered with every jaw movement he made as he spoke.

“That is what I’ve gathered from the information Lance and Keith managed to get from the Billy Goats Gruff about the different sightings of non-local fae before, well, you know,” Corran said. “See, here--” he pointed at the center woven circle, not a proper dreamcatcher, where a green bead, not a pebble, lay. “This green bead represents Shay’s home.”

“Oh!” Shay exclaimed. “Then the blue pebble in the center of the loom on top--that must be the Gruff Headquarters!”

“Right you are, Shay! See, this overlap between the top circle and this middle one represents where your home and surrounding area overlaps with the Gruff’s territory!”

“Then the bottom loom is the Troll’s territory?” Hunk asked. The bowl clattered again, until Lance shot his hand out and held the bowl still.

“Yes, right you are, Hunk! And as you can see--” Corran pointed at the outer ring of the Troll’s territory, which touched the edge of the Gruff’s ring...right on top of the bead that represented Shay’s home.

Pidge squinted, adjusted her glasses, and pouted--but no, the rings representing the territory of two fairy gangs at war still touched each other right on top of their client’s house.

As if this case really needed to get more complicated.

“Shay, did you have any idea that your home was in such a...contentious location?” Pidge admired that even sleep-deprived, Allura managed to be delicate with her words. If she’d been asking, she might have said something along the lines of, “did you know you lived on Welcome to Hell Lane?”.

“Umm...” Shay scratched the larger protrusions coming out of the side of her head with the claw part of her hands. Pidge had noticed that Shay had very prominent claws, and spikes coming off of part of her arms. She wondered, were her claws made out of the same organic material that human fingernails were? Or were they made of something slightly rockier and stronger? Also, what the hell did Hunk find so alluring about Shay’s legs that were jointed like a wolf? Did Hunk have some sort of wolf leg fetish?

Pidge grimaced. This had to be the sleep deprivation talking. Who cared that she was only 14, where was coffee when you needed it? Growth stunt be damned.

“Honestly, my family and I spend most of our time underground in the caves--I didn’t even think that the stalker might be from aboveground until you mentioned the bones in the trash.”

“Wait, so those aren’t normal?”

Shay shook her head. The bowl clattered again, and Pidge saw Hunk smiling gleefully into his grog.

“Our home’s guardian, the Balmera, doesn’t eat living creatures. And everyone in my family mostly eats fruits, nuts, berries, and occasionally we get vegetables from our neighbors as gifts. The bones are too small to be from any of our dead, either. We take any leftovers or remains that can’t be broken down by the earth, whether it be because they’re too resilient or poisonous to the soil, and take them outside when we’re done with them.”

“So someone must have placed those bones in your trash just so you’d come across them while you were outside, emptying out any refuse from your cave.” Shiro’s hand stopped its mysterious tracing. “Why go through all that trouble? What could those bones possibly mean?”

And why risk the wrath of not one, but two fairy gangs by fucking around in their territory, Pidge thought. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark--er, Fariy Land.

“Well, I think that sounds like a perfectly creepy line of investigation”, Lance spoke up. He grinned, and leaned forward, one elbow on the table. “Perfect for a Paladin like myself to get his investigative juices flowing! So am I on the case?”

Before Shiro could answer, Allura spoke.

“Actually, Lance, today you have...another mission.” Allura sighed, and pinched the brow of her nose.

“Baba Yaga’s cat got stuck in a tree.”

Everyone groaned.

“Ugh, not again!” Lance let his head drop to the table, all pretense at morning dignity abandoned. “This is ridiculous!!”

“Lance, please”, Allura pleaded. “You know that we have to do these favors for her as trade for information on the lost lore of the Briar Pact that my ancestors buried ages ago. Without it, we’ll never unlock the power that will unite these lands! You need to do this! For the good of all Faerie!”

Pidge wondered how much information they still had to gain. This was the third time one of Baba Yaga’s cats had gotten “stuck” up a tree, and when she’d gone with Lance the first time it hadn’t gone so well. She’d managed to climb up halfway, and then the tree just--started growing. Two hours later,when the tree’s canopy looked like a speck in the horizon, she gave up, and then Lance shot up and got the cat out in five minutes. There was definitely something weird about that tree; when Lance came back down, he told Pidge that it had looked like she’d been climbing the tree in a circle without moving upwards for about 30 minutes.

When Hunk tried the second time, the tree just smacked him.

Stupid magical fairy trees.

“Fine”, Lance said, resigned. “But who’s going to hold the chain? It gets weird up in those branches”, he said, and wrapped his arms around him for effect. Pidge was disturbed to note that there was the slightest ring of panic in his voice.

“About that…” Shiro smiled. Everyone in the room watched as Shiro deliberately turned his head--towards Keith.

Pidge suddenly felt much more awake.

Now this was going to be good.

 

 

~~~

chapter notes, because holy shit ao3 formatting notes is weird--

something I forgot to mention in chapter one--all their pendants are made out of copper because a.) copper is one of the 7 major alchemical metals, and b.) copper is used in communications wiring! two references with one metal. Hurray!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up pretty expository, whoops.


	3. Request form: Permission to Tell Baba Yaga to Invest in a Cat Leash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magical Fairy Tree Bullshit is the Least of Keith's Problems

“I can handle myself on the investigation”, said Keith.

“I swear, I’ll be on my best paladin behavior”, said Keith.

“Look, I know I messed up, but I promise I won’t try and beat up another goat”, said Keith.

Shiro smiled, said “That’s... nice, Keith, but--”, and banned him from interacting with any more goats until the case of Shay’s stalker was closed.

Which was why Keith was now stuck in a lightly wooded glen, decked out in full Paladin gear, leaning against the tallest wooden fencepost to a lettuce garden, listening to Lance whine about having to climb the old gnarled oak right outside of Baba Yaga’s property for the third time.

“And the tree is so rough against my smooth, baby-soft skin! It’s just not fair that I always get stuck on cat duty.”

“Wow. Sure sucks to be you.”

Lance glared at him, and Keith was certain he'd just been mentally flipped-off.

“I'm just saying, it's be nice if someone else could climb the gigantic fairy tree. Like Allura! She’s the one who agreed to this arrangement in the first place, why doesn't she ever try to climb the tree to get the cat?”

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that her familiars are mice?”

Keith sagged against the fence post harder out of spite. Since this was the first time he’d tagged along with Lance on this cat quest, Keith found himself doing the best he could to be familiar with his surroundings. He’d picked this spot because he had great line of sight across the whole property. There was a path made out of small, flat stones that led from the forest through the clearing to the garden, and aside from the oak tree, most of the trees in this area were short, new growths, close to his height. If anyone came in from behind, they’d have to jump over the garden fence to get to him, or go around--and the fence posts creaked when leaned on. To his close right was the gigantic oak that Lance just wouldn’t stop complaining about, so he had a place to maneuver around in case of a surprise attack.

As for any attacks that might come from above? He figured the gigantic, creepy house that sat on freakishly large chicken legs which stood right over the garden would dissuade that.

After seeing Shiro run shouting through a glowing portal chased by tiny pixies with spears, having a small knife in his hand transform into a longsword as he held it, and getting kicked in the face by a talking goat, Keith had sworn he’d seen it all. But apparently Fairy Land was just a Magical Gift full of Weird Fuckery that just kept on Giving.

“She wouldn’t have to bring them along! Isn’t she telepathically linked to those mice anyways? She could just leave them at the castle, out of harm’s way from any mean witch kitties that like magical fairy mice meat. I’m just saying!”

Keith didn’t feel like pointing out how much of a hypocrite Lance was being--Lance’s familiar, a blue lion with a red kerchief wrapped around her neck, was already curled up against the tree, watching Lance whine with an amused glint in her eye that reminded Keith of those over-indulgent stay-at-home moms that people liked to say existed back home.

How it was that Lance--the Lance who couldn’t do anything right, the Lance that tripped over his words, the Lance that consistently proved himself time and time again to be an unbearable pain in the ass--was so far the only Paladin who’d managed to successfully summon their familiar, Keith didn’t comprehend. The exact rituals behind summoning their familiars was one piece of the lost lore that they needed to get from Baba Yaga. He hoped that this visit was the one Baba Yaga chose to share that information.

He just had to endure a little bit more of Lance’s whining, and soon, he’d have his familiar, too.

_ You can do this _ , Keith told himself, and Endured.

“Well, she can’t do it this time”, Keith said. “She’s busy on a diplomatic delegation today.”

“Oh yeah--smoothing over that mess you made with the goats!”

Keith scowled. He just couldn’t catch a break, could he? “Can we just get this over with?”

Lance sighed, and walked over to Keith. “Fine. I’ll start with this.” Keith watched Lance lift up the edge of his doublet to try to grab something from his shirt. The belt fastening his doublet got in the way, however, so Lance fumbled for a few seconds. Keith didn’t bother stopping himself from laughing.

“Ha ha, wait until you have to pee in the bushes, wise guy”, Lance spat. Keith kept on laughing, right up until Lance opted to take off the belt.

Keith stopped. “Uh”.

“What?” Lance continued, and pulled the doublet off over his head. He held it hanging over one arm while he dug through his pockets.

“I just...didn’t realize we could take it off”, Keith said. “It normally just appears when we say the magic words, so I didn’t…”

Keith was used to seeing his own body. Seeing other people’s bodies? He’d skipped out on locker room antics back at school because he hated dealing with people and their noise, and their locker room talk, and  _ people _ . Keith especially wasn’t used to other people taking their clothes off around him. The casual ease that Lance had in just stripping in front of him took him aback. Unsure where his eyes were supposed to go, he looked down.

Apparently, the leggings they wore  _ were  _ as tight as they felt.

“Uh.”

“Hah!” Lance, oblivious, cried out, snapping Keith out of--whatever he was doing. “Got it!” He pulled his bright blue magical doublet back over and picked up the belt off the ground. “These medieval clothes are a pain in my ass. Like, really.” 

“Uh?” Keith felt like now would be a really bad time to interpret that comment. So he looked at what Lance had stripped down to grab out of his pocket.

In Lance’s had, there was a thin, silver chain, a little wider than the average width of a necklace band. It glittered, and an afterimage glowed in Lance’s hand briefly before dissipating.

“Alright, so here’s how this works--” Lance walked over to Keith, and tied the end of the chain around his own wrist. Then, he held the chain taut in front of Keith, his expression serious.

“This is a Mulberry Chain. It can only go on a willing person, and likewise cannot be taken from you without you willing it to be removed. I need to tie this on you so that when I go up into that freaky tree, I have a lifeline so i won’t get lost.”

Lost?

Keith looked up at the tree. It was pretty tall for an oak tree, but he could see through the canopy just fine. How was Lance supposed to get lost?

The goat wound on his face throbbed in dull reminder. Fairy land bullshit. Right. Keith wondered for the first time what exactly went on in that oak canopy.

Lance took a deep breath, and jangled the chain in front of him. “Do you willingly accept the Mulberry chain, and in doing so keep me tethered to this fairy plane so that I may return unscathed?” he looked Keith dead in the eyes. His shoulders were hunched slightly, probably from holding the chain as far away from him as possible.

Keith shrugged, said, “Yeah, okay, let’s get this over with”, and Lance speedily tied the chain around his wrist. Keith had expected it to be a little warm after spending time in Lance’s hand for a while, but the chain was surprisingly cool; he felt the chill of the sparkly metal all the way through his gloves. There was something else, too. The wind picked up around his knees, and every little chime of the chain links felt louder in his ears. A sense of otherness washed over him, and the chain burned colder around his wrist.

Was he ever going to get used to this magic stuff?

“Awesome, it’s go time”, Lance said excitedly, and walked back towards the tree rubbing his hands together. He stopped at the tree, and then turned around to face Keith again.

“You absolutely better not hand off that chain to anybody, you hear me?”

Keith frowned. Really? Lance was lecturing him? “I get it, your very life depends on me not letting go of this thing. No chain remove-ey, very bad.”

“Yeah, that’s right! And you better not forget it!” Lance pointed accusingly at Keith, and then turned back to the task at hand. Keith watched, surprised, as Lance clambered up the tree with ease, if not grace. He tried to keep his eye on him, but Lance was soon enough lost to his eyes in the oak tree’s generous canopy, the silver chain following him upwards.

Keith stared down at his wrist, and the chain. “This thing was a lot shorter when he tied it on”, he marveled aloud.

“That’s the beauty of Mulberry chains--they’re incredibly adaptable for their need.”

Keith snapped to attention. He hadn’t heard anyone approach--how’d someone get behind him like that??--and saw a girl, about his age, looking back at him inquisitively.

“Who are you?”

The girl smiled.

“You must be...hmm. Yes, you must be Keith.” A strange, crawling sensation flowed over his entire body, like raindrops falling on an umbrella--all over, but not touching him. He couldn’t help but recall something Allura had said, about how important it was for the Paladins to wear their full regalia outside of the castle; that their gear was enchanted, and protected them from all but the strongest of magic.

Keith took a cautionary step back, towards the tree.

“You just tried to enchant me. What do you want?”

Keith saw the girl’s eyes open wider, and watched her mouth twisted up in a grin. “Oh, good. I can see that you’re going to make this interesting for me.”

“Make what interesting?”

She laughed in answer. “Oh, if you’re smart you’ll figure it out yourself. After all, you’re a paladin of the Briar Pact, are you not? There are many tales going about the wood about the newly forged paladins rising to the occasion, to save the fae regions from the encroaching Goblin menace. How’s that going, by the way?”

“What--you mean saving people?”

She shook her head. “The Goblin menace. How’s it all going on that front? I hear that it’s very hard to stumble across a Goblin these days ever since they went underground. Have you seen one yet?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions for someone who still hasn’t answered one of mine.”

“That’s because you don’t have the authority to ask questions of me. Not yet. You haven’t formed any pacts with me, after all! And here in the Fae Regions, we simply do not do as we are asked without proper compensation--nay, your questions are already spoken for. But, perhaps…”

Keith waited as she took one more step forward, and then stopped. She was maybe five paces away from him--if things got dangerous, he could probably go for the legs to knock her off balance and then keep her down. If he was on his own, he’d try to go for a knock-out and dash, but with Lance still up in the tree, he had to settle for pinning the opponent until help arrived.

“I can tell you the answers to questions you didn’t even know you had, if you desired it. Perhaps a love fortune? Or a secret that your parents kept hidden from you?”

“Sorry, but I’m not interested in love and my parents are dead.”

“That just means that they kept even  _ more  _ secrets from you”, the girl responded, undaunted. She then laughed, and leaned in towards him. “And from the looks of things, one of those secrets is going to bite you soon. Yes…” she looked him up and down, and her grin seemed to stretch her face. “Very soon.”

Keith backed away again, feeling much more uncomfortable. “What’s  _ that  _ supposed to mean?”

“This is fun. I think I much prefer watching you stumble in the dark like this”, she mused. “In fact, I think I should be very hard-pressed to form a pact with you at all for how much fun I’m having.” She stepped back, finally giving Keith space, and then looked up at the tree. “And what do you know, our hero has arrived.”

“Wh--” Before Keith could ask Yet Another Question, there was a sound of squawking and cracking twigs right above him. Lance landed right between him and the mysterious girl, and cradled in his arms was the fluffiest cat Keith had ever seen.

“Alright, no more of that nonsense for you, Gawain”, Lance scolded, and then looked up from the cat to Keith, and smiled briefly. Then he looked at the girl.

“Oh, you were  _ not  _ trying to trick  _ another  _ paladin into a pact”, Lance scolded, and placed the cat in the girl’s arms.

“Wait-- _she’s_ Baba Yaga?”

“I knew you’d figure it out eventually, Keith!” Baba Yaga smiled as she snuggled the cat in her arms. She then looked back at Lance, her grin even creepier than before. “Oh, my dear Lancelot, but it’s so much fun to test them like this! And the tree does so much want to keep you for its own--perhaps one day after all this Goblin business is done, you shall return to me and join the rest of them, my pet.” She pat Lance on the head affectionately, and Keith felt Lance’s lion bristle by his feet.

Lance slithered out from under Baba Yaga’s hand, and Keith felt himself relax. Something just felt wrong about her petting him while her own cat was still in her arms

“Wow, uh, about that”, Lance began, and shuffled himself behind Keith. “You just remember to keep to your part of the bargain, there, Baba Yaga”.

Baba Yaga pouted, and then shrugged her shoulders. “Very well. Allura shall receive a message from me at the castle, as per the agreement.” She then held her cat’s paw in her hand and bobbed it up and down. “Gawain, say good-bye to Lancelot and his friend Keith. Good kitty.”

Keith just stared, before being bodily dragged away by Lance.

“Time to get the hell out of here”, Lance whispered, and Keith saw the blue lion follow after him out of the corner of his eye. “Before she has a chance to say anything else--”

“Oh, by the by”, Baba Yaga said cheerfully.  “Interesting bane you have upon your head, Child of the Thorns”

They both stopped in their tracks.

What did she just call him?

“I expect to have much fun watching you deal with that,” Baba Yaga called out, waved at them again, and then turned back to her house.

“Uh.”

Keith was stumped. 

“Haha, cool story, bye now”, Lance called back, and then continued to pull Keith away from Baba Yaga. Then, after several paces, Lance stopped, and whispered so as to not be overheard. “What the hell was that about a bane on your head?”

Keith shrugged, and started untying the Mulberry chain around his wrist. “No idea. Though now I know why you keep getting cat duty.”

Lance raised his brows. “Oh?”

“Because if you were down here, you’d spend the whole time trying to flirt with Baba Yaga and she’d have you making a pact in no time.”

Keith expected Lance to scoff, or wax poetic about his flirting prowess, something--other than the horrified expression on his face.

“Dude, what the fuck? A Casanova I may be, but I have standards about hitting on little kids. She looks like my kid sister! Gross!”

It took a moment for Keith to process that.

“She...looks like a kid to you?”

“Yeah, she looks different to everybody, apparently--what does she look like to you? Think she’s my type?”

“Er. About my age? And…” he thought, and pouted. What color was her hair? Her eyes? Try as he could, Keith realized that he couldn’t remember any other specific details about what Baba Yaga looked like.

_That's it,_ Keith thought, _I've had enough Fairy Fuckery Bullshit for the day._

“Let’s just get back to the castle and find out how everyone else is doing.” 


	4. Fairy Shit Hits the Fan Like Any Other Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Allura meet with the Billy Goats Gruff to smooth out the kerfuffle started by Keith. Things do not get smoothed, however, and in fact only proceed to get even more ruffled.

“Just as a reminder, Shiro, just because the Billy Goats Gruff are fans of power displays, we should not engage them in any violence of any sort; we’re here to be diplomatic, not assert any dominance.”

Shiro felt a surge of magic flow through his gnarled, wooden arm. It always seemed to do this every time the barest hint of a promise of violence presented itself. He clenched his fist, and his teeth, and waited a beat for the magic to dissipate. A moment passed, and the burning glow of the carved runes simmered down.

He didn’t think Allura noticed. He hoped she didn’t.

“I understand, Allura. No displays of violence unless absolutely necessary”. Shiro resisted the urge to smile reassuringly; he had the feeling that would give away that there was something bothering him.

Not that there  _ wasn’t _ something bothering him.   _ Besides  _ the gnarled, evil wooden prosthetic, of course.

He didn’t feel like admitting to being intimidated by the large gathering of human-sized goats surrounding them that stood on their hind legs and spoke in rhyme. At least, not in front of the goats. Just because they weren’t supposed to engage the Billy Goats Gruff in some Goat Machismo Headbutting, didn’t mean that he’d show any weakness.

He caught Allura looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and saw a brief, reassuring smile tug at the corner of her mouth. Apparently he didn’t need to admit to anything. Which was...nice. Shiro allowed himself to feel momentary relief, and then turned his mind to the task at hand: not looking scared in front of goats.

It was harder than it looked. Goat eyes are seriously creepy.

Allura took a deep breath, and then the delegations began.

“My friends, let us now commence  
Our talks of peace and of sense  
That we may come around  
And find it more sound  
That we cease to be so tense”

There was a murmur among the man-sized goats, and some hooves stomping the ground. Something tickled at the back of his mind; Limerick. 

The delegations were in limerick. Of course they were in limerick. That made  _ total  _ sense.

One of the bigger goats, a horned beast with a frock made of crudely-sewn together fabric that was some shade of moldy brown--partially due to being old, and partially because Shiro was pretty sure there was actual mold on it--stepped forward, and a jangling noise followed. Shiro assessed him; his horns were fairly large, curled like a mountain goat, and the goat wore some form of jewelry with white stones tied with leather bands wherever the goat could manage it; strips of leather ribbed his gigantic horns, dangled on his forelegs (arms? Shiro supposed they were arms, in this case, since the goat was standing up), dangling all over from knots tied into his fur, even under the moldy cloak. Clearly they held some significance Shiro couldn’t account for.

The large goat, who Shiro supposed was their leader as they stood in front of the gathered goats, swung their arm out in a wide, slow arc, and the jewelry jangled again. Some of the ones on the arm had a red tinge to them--

Shiro realized that the white stones were, in fact, teeth. Troll teeth, if he had to take a wild guess. 

The goat’s rectangular pupils bulged within their eyes, and the goat spoke;

“Oh Paladins of the Patch,  
What indeed, a fine day’s catch,  
We Billy Goats Gruff  
Are prone to puff  
But we’d love this bridge to thatch”

Though we are, truly, to cheer  
To help a knight beyond peer  
It boggles my mind  
That one of your kind  
Is so ripe to japes and jeers”

It took a moment to parse through the verse properly. Though his bond to the Faerie Realms by the Oath of the Briar Pact granted him comprehension of all Fae speech, poetry still had to be deciphered. Also, the Billy Goats Gruff had an accent. (Pidge would probably find that information fascinating, and want to track the accents of faerie creatures somehow). He turned to Allura, and whispered to her as low as he could;

“Are they... _ admitting  _ to starting the fight with Keith?”

Allura’s eyebrows were tightly pinched.

“Shiro, that’s not entirely it; they’re accusing Keith of weakness. If I’m interpreting their rhyme correctly, they must have made some sort of...joke when Keith was asking them questions.”

“A joke?” Shiro didn’t think that was likely. Keith hadn’t talked about what had led up to the fight, but he didn’t think Keith would start a fight over something insignificant. Granted, Keith hadn’t talked about what happened much because his face had still been healing. The healing herbs that Coran had applied should have taken care of most of the damage done, so Shiro planned on getting some insight from Keith himself once this delegation was over with.

“The Billy Goats Gruff are not known for their sensitivity and will often make crude, even cruel remarks because they think they’re funny”, Allura clarified. “I’m sure that whatever they said, it wasn’t very nice. However, the Billy Goats Gruff don’t see it that way, and are saying that Keith’s reaction is a sign of weak character.”

Ah. Shiro looked back to the assembled Goats, and narrowed his eyes. This kind of mentality was familiar to him. It figured that Faerie would also be rife with bullies. Shiro had enough experience with people like that back home. He felt his arm twitch again, and grit his teeth as he urged the arm to calm down again, and watched as Allura began addressing the goats once more:

“I had not known this to be  
That assembled before me  
Were fellows so thick  
As to judge so quick  
A babe in the woods of Faerie”

_ One, two three, four, five _ , he counted the syllables of each verse to divert his focus.  _ One, two, three, four, five six, seven...eight?  _ The last line was eight syllables long. Weren’t limericks only supposed to be seven-seven-five-five-seven? He raised his brows at Allura in question. She looked back at him and shrugged slightly.

The leader goat brayed, and shook his head.

“Tis true we paid offense  
Deserving of recompense  
But uncouth is your boy  
So quick to destroy  
We are bound to seek vengeance”

_ Vengeance?  _ Shiro didn’t like the sound of that. The rest of the goats seemed to love it, though--they all began scratching at the dirt with one leg. He almost  _ felt  _ Allura stiffen beside him, fighting to keep her composure. Shiro remembered what Allura had said about power displays, and realized that this had to be what she meant.

“Our terms we give simply;  
That child’s no good for faerie  
We would kindly thank   
If he be stripped of rank  
And Paladin no more be”

“Preposterous!” Allura swiped the air with her hand in outrage. “You, a being of this realm, know how the Briar Pact works; we cannot command the Pact to release a Paladin of their sworn duty. It has chosen him; it is his nature now, and he  _ is  _ a paladin the same way that you  _ are  _ a Billy Goat Gruff. Even I cannot force that bond apart.”

Shiro felt a chill run down his spine as the creepy, square pupils of the Head Gruff dilated, and the 

“Oh, there is a method which you   
Must know as well as I do:   
We’ll just make him dead!   
We’ll come for his head!  
The Pact will form anew!”   


Shiro had his arm out in front of him before the chant was done, and the leader of the Billy Goats Gruff charged.

A sickening pop sizzled in the air as his arm came to life; the goat’s horns connected with a gnarled, broad blade that was as wide as his head, and Shiro pushed back. The leader fell back, stunned. 

“Negotiations are officially over”, Allura called out, and grabbed hold of Shiro’s good arm. “Run!” 

Biting back the magic pulsing scream in his blood to stay and fight, Shiro followed Allura’s lead, and the two bolted away from the stampeding horde of rhyming goats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rhyming is hard and limericks are bullshit, more as it develops


End file.
